Box Score Third-ranked Houston got 20 points from Baylor transfer LJ Cryer and used a suffocating defense to defeat West Virginia 89-55 at the Feritta Center in Houston, Texas, Saturday afternoon.
 
It was Houston's first-ever Big 12 game.
 
Ja'Vier Francis contributed 13 points and Jamal Shead handed out 11 assists for the Cougars, who remain undefeated at 14-0.
 
Houston has limited its last two opponents Texas State and Penn to 37 and 42 points respectively, and only three teams have (Utah, Xavier and Texas A&M) have scored more than 60 points against this Cougar defense.
 
"The way they play it's not a good matchup for us, by any means," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. "You look at the rebounding and we ended up 40-34, which is better than I thought it would be, but they just made shots."
 
Houston jumped on West Virginia early and got a double-digit lead at the 10-minute mark of the first half on Cryer's pullup jumper. Then, the Cougars used an 11-2 run over the next five minutes to build a 36-15 lead with 4:23 remaining in the first half.
 
The Cougars got it to 27 on Cryer's 3-point jumper with 35 seconds until intermission. Houston's biggest lead of the game was 39 points with 12:05 left in the game.
 
West Virginia's RaeQuan Battle, who came into today's game averaging 27.3 points in the three games he's played, was 1-of-9 from the floor and finished with just 4 points. Forward Pat Suemnick led the Mountaineers with 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting coming off the bench and has likely played himself into a more prominent role when you consider his production in last Saturday's Ohio State loss.
 
Suemnick also grabbed five rebounds.
 
No other WVU player reached double figures.
 
"The ball was sticking, and they did a really good job in those traps," Eilert said. "We needed to take advantage of what they were giving us, and we weren't doing that. We've got to make teams pay when they're doing that, and they didn't have to make any adjustments because we weren't.
 
"They do as good as anyone in the country I've seen at closing out with speed and physicality," Eilert added.
 
West Virginia made just 18 of its 56 field goal attempts for 32.1%, including 4 of 23 from 3-point distance for 17.4%.
 
Houston was 9 of 8 from behind the arc and shot 53% overall for the game.
 
"We saw this last year in an early game at Texas in the league and we've got to learn quick and turn the page," Eilert said. "We play a good Kansas State at home and we've got to be more disciplined and take our game plan from the practice court to the game floor."
 
Today's loss drops West Virginia to 5-9 overall and 0-1 in Big 12 play and will return to the Coliseum next Tuesday night to face Kansas State.